IAF officer found guilty for shooting down own chopper after 2019 Balakot strike; fired [details]

After a four-year-long trial, a military court recommended the dismissal of Group Captain Suman Roy Chowdhary from services for ordering the shooting down of the Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter.

The General Court Martial (GCM) found Group Captain Suman Roy Chowdhury responsible for shooting down IAF's own Mi-17 helicopter as it approached the Srinagar Air Force station in 2019, which led to the casualty of six IAF personnel and a civilian on February 27, 2019.

The IAF's Court of Inquiry (CoI) had found him guilty of a violation of standard operating procedures and taking the call to shoot down the helicopter as the then Chief Operation Officer (COO) of the Air Force Station.

Reports said that the Group Captain moved an application on April 5 for not proceeding with the pronouncement of the sentence till the matter was disposed of by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. But on the advice of Judge Advocate, the GCM proceeded ahead.

Tragic incident took place a day after Balakote strike

The incident took place a day after the IAF carried out an airstrike in Balakot, Pakistan, in retaliation to the Pulwama terror attack of February 14, 2019, that left 40 CRPF personnel dead.

After the Balakote airstrike, Pakistani Air Force launched a counter-strike. The helicopter took off and crashed within a 10-minute period when the air skirmish was on 100 km away, and the region's airbases and military installations were on high-trigger alert. It was established that the helicopter was shot down in a friendly fire.

Those who lost their lives included pilots Squadron Leader S Vashisht and Squadron Leader Ninand M, Sergeant VK Pandey, Sergeant Vikrant Sahrawat, Corporal Pankaj Kumar, Corporal D Pandey, and Kifayat Hussain Ganie, a civilian on the ground and resident of Budgam district.

He is held guilty of failure to monitor the position of the friendly copter in contravention of the duties of the Terminal Weapon Director (TWD) contained in SOPs.

The GCM was also on against Wing Commander Shyam Naithani, who was the then Senior Air Traffic Control Officer. However, he has been acquitted of four charges but got a severe reprimand for one charge, which means that his career growth within the IAF is over.

Chowdhury, on the other hand, was found guilty of five major counts of the nine charges against him, including for violating the instructions issued by the Air Headquarters, which warranted all aircraft operating north of latitude 3200 N to operate with Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) on. The IFF is a transponder-based identification system.